Officials in the US say they believe they have found the remains of a grandmother who went missing after apparently falling into a sinkhole while looking for her cat.
Elizabeth Pollard, 64, was last seen searching for her pet, Pepper, on Monday evening near a restaurant half a mile from her home in the village of Marguerite, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.
She was reported missing by her family at about 1am on Tuesday when she had not returned – amid below freezing temperatures.
Sean Hribal, a deputy coroner in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, said on Friday searchers believe they have found her remains in Unity Township, where workers have been digging out an abandoned coal mine to try to find her.
Ms Pollard’s son, Axel Hayes, said in a phone interview that a state trooper told him and other family members that her body had been found.
He said he had been “hoping for the best. I was hoping she was still alive, maybe in a coma or something. I wasn’t expecting all of this”.
Searchers had concentrated their efforts on a sinkhole with a manhole-sized, surface gap that may have only recently opened up above an area where coal was mined until about 70 years ago.
Crews removed a massive amount of soil and rock to try to reach the area where they believed she fell into the 30ft (9.1m) deep chasm.
Ms Pollard’s car was parked about 20ft (6m) from the site, police said, and her five-year-old granddaughter was found safe inside the vehicle.
People who were in the area in the hours before she disappeared told police they had not noticed the sinkhole.
A pole camera with a sensitive listening device was lowered into the hole, although it found nothing.
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State police Trooper Steve Limani told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that there was massive relief among the search team that Ms Pollard had been found.
“We were running out of options, time and resources. I was getting worried we weren’t gonna find her,” he said.
Mike O’Barto, who chairs the Unity Township Board of Supervisors, said “the people of Unity Township are sad today”.
A pole camera with a sensitive listening device was lowered into the hole, although it found nothing.